Mairead McGuinness

slumped

Mairead McGuinness MEP is running for the Louth seats, main opposition is likely to come from Seamus Kirk TD.

Anyone in Louth got a view on MMcG? I'm an Ardonian and would love to see her elected but Kirk gets good Dundalk support.

MMcG should get transfers from O'Dowd in Drogheda but will that be enough?

Any one out there got a view on this?

S

ballooba

McGuinness's vote is potentially bigger than that of O'Dowd (according to Red C poll) and will be drawn from outside of the core FG vote. I have €50 on her at 2/1 to win a seat. You wouldn't get those odds now. Money in the bank!

Kirk's a gonner.

InFront

I thought she was amazing on the week in politics last Sunday night, when she was debating with Mary Hannafin. The latter is usually very good at fighting the Government's corner but I thought McGuinness really outshone her; McGuinness' exposure to the media and experience in public debate will be a major credit to her not only in the election but very possibly as a Government Minister.

is_that_so

O'Dowd has been one of the performers of this Dáil and I would expect him to get back in. He is also Drogheda-based. I agree with balooba, FG are after that Kirk seat and I would expect McGuinness to get it. Her performances to date have been impressive and she is very media-savvy. Kirk has been anonymous in this Dáil. Demographics for this one will be interesting given how much the population has changed since 2002.

ballooba

O'Dowd in contrast to Kirk seems to have quite a high profile in the area. He has made it into the national papers a few times too.

Most recently by accident, because he nearly got poisoned at a function in NY run by the Sligo Society. Carbon monoxide incident at the restaurant.

is_that_so

He has also been helped by his selection as opposition spokesperson on various portfolios -currently environment , heritage and local government .

ballooba

Louth will be:
Ahern
McGuinness
O'Dowd
Morgan

is_that_so

is_that_so wrote:

Her performances to date have been impressive and she is very media-savvy.

She should be. After all, she worked on the Late Late and Ear to the Ground and the Irish Independant before her parachute took her into Fine Gael instead of the PDs. I suppose when she has put down some track record we will be in a better position to judge her on the 'style or substance' question...

ballooba

Deleted User wrote:

She should be. After all, she worked on the Late Late and Ear to the Ground and the Irish Independant before her parachute took her into Fine Gael instead of the PDs. I suppose when she has put down some track record we will be in a better position to judge her on the 'style or substance' question...

Now, now, sour grapes.

InFront

Deleted User wrote:

She should be. After all, she worked on the Late Late and Ear to the Ground and the Irish Independant before her parachute took her into Fine Gael instead of the PDs. I suppose when she has put down some track record we will be in a better position to judge her on the 'style or substance' question...

You forgot to mention that she's an MEP?

A very good MEP at that.

FlutterinBantam

I'd give her a tip too...

The_Minister

Tristrame wrote:

A very good MEP at that.

Off the top of your head what has she done?
I have respect for her, but while she has a very large media-presence, I'm not sure that anyone can really distinguish themselves as an MEP.

slumped

Personally I hope she gets in - Ardee would benefit hugely.

Elmo

I have respect for her, but while she has a very large media-presence, I'm not sure that anyone can really distinguish themselves as an MEP.

I think that that is the reason the PD's use when they don't put forward a cadidate for the Euro Elections.

But I feel that MEP/TD is a form of dual mandate and she should either give up her MEP seat or not run for the DAIL.

The_Minister

I agree. I don't think that you can spend half the year in Europe, and manage to be a good TD at the same time. AFAIR however, she has said that she will keep her MEP position. I don't think that she is the only dual-holder though.

ballooba

TD & MEP:
Eoin Ryan (FF).
Marian Harkin (Ind) MEP for North West.
Coveney was also elected to Dail in 2002 but left in 2004 when he got his Euro seat.

Current MEP candidates for 30th Dail:
Mary Lou McDonald (SF)
Mairead McGuinness (FG)
Simon Coveney (FG)

Elmo

Why is Coveney going up for election after stepping down in 2004 when he got his euro seat? This doesn't make any sense. Suppose its a FG thing never to make sense

Who took Coveney's dail seat?

I know that if your elected to the dail and you have a local government seat that you can give that seat to the person of your choice.

Does this apply to MEPs also? or TD going for Europe? OR are by-elections held?

Marian Harkin (Ind) MEP for North West.

She will not be running for TD this time out.

ballooba

Elmo wrote:

Why is Coveney going up for election after stepping down in 2004 when he got his euro seat?

As far as I know he had to give up his Dail seat when he won the Euro seat. I'm not sure why. I can't seem to find out who took his seat either. He stepped down in October 2004.

Elmo wrote:

She will not be running for TD this time out.

Neither will Eoin Ryan.

Elmo

Neither will Eoin Ryan.

Only too right.

But then FF had some kind of trouble in Donegal.

ballooba

Elmo wrote:

Only too right.

But then FF had some kind of trouble in Donegal.

Eoin Ryan is TD for Dublin South East.

Elmo

Eoin Ryan is TD for Dublin South East.

Yes I know I was of course talking about McDaid when he went up of MEP in Ulster/Connacht.

ballooba

Elmo wrote:

Yes I know I was of course talking about McDaid when he went up of MEP in Ulster/Connacht.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

If it's McDaid's drinking, then it hasn't stopped him running for the 30th Dail.

slumped

Mairead did not make it - at least 2500 votes shy.

She said she was about 1000 down at her estimate last week. Very far off.

S

Elmo

If it's McDaid's drinking, then it hasn't stopped him running for the 30th Dail.

Sorry a while since I wrote that comment. I think I am talking about the internal fighting in FF which caused McDaid to lose that election for Europe not his drinking problem.

There are things worse then alcoholism about the FF party and they still get elected.

lucernarian

Lots of people, mainly in the Dublin-based media and some out-of-date polls in the local press, tipped Mairead McGuiness. As we can see, it was a long long way off. There was a huge local campaign behind Seamus Kirk and I know a lot of people, including myself, to try to put in the man who's been a Louth TD for 25 years, instead of the MEP, with the associated benefits, who was basically parachuted in. He was gaining ground since even before the campaign started.

MMcG had 14% in January but fell to 9% a couple of weeks before the election.

She'll need to spend a lot more time on local issues, but if she does, she should get it next time out. Fergus O'Dowd has worked hard for his locality and he increased his personal vote from about 5,000 to 8,000.

Kalashnikov_Kid

What won it for Kirk was that there was a call for the resignation of the Louth FF election officer in the local Dundalk paper last Wednesday over fears of losing his seat to poor vote management.

Lo and behold earlier this week houses in the Mid-Louth battleground between McGuinness and Kirk get a letter from Bertie urging them to vote 1 Kirk, 2 Ahern.

So instead of Dermot getting ~12,000 1st preferences and Kirk getting ~6,000, they both got in or around 9,000 with Kirk topping the poll when everyone was predicting he would lose out on the final seat.

This result didnt happen by accident!

irish_bob

while i would love to have seen mairead mc guiness getting elected , she never stood a chance in this constituency

its a very strong ticket , 1st of all thier is dermot aherne who is a poltical giant ( and rightly so) he was always going to get number 1 for fianna fail and send a huge amount of transfers to fianna fails other td seamus kirk
as a result of fianna fails vote managment , kirk actually came in ahead of dermot aherne , also you must remember semaus kirk is a popular as a local politician and a hard worker on the ground even hes low key nationally
people on the ground and especially fianna fail voters on the ground do not care that mariead mc guinness is a more well known face

also , she could not have taken fergus o dowds seat as he is seen by all partys as being an excellent td

then on to the only other seat she could have taken , arthur morgans
louth is the 2nd strongest republican county after monaghan in ireland and thier is no town more strongly republican in ireland than dundalk so arthur morgan was never going to loose to mariead mc guinness

oh and fg also had another less known person running who took from mairead
not his fault as he was on the ticket before mairead arrived


she would have been easily elected had she ran a few miles across the border in meath east , this was a much weaker ticket and thier was the added advantage of being a new seat so she would not be looking to unseat anyone , she would have taken the seat which thomas byrne of fianna fail eventually took and which dominic hannigan of labour was expected to take


in summary , no surprise that mairead didnt make it